Mansour later issued a statement expressing “deep sorrow” over the deaths and calling for restraint.

The Brotherhood, meantime, released the names of 42 people killed in the incident.

The interior ministry and military said two policemen and a soldier were killed and blamed “terrorists.”

According to the Associated Press, Army Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali told a news conference that police and troops came under “heavy gunfire” at around 4 a.m., while attackers threw Molotov cocktails from rooftops.

The rooftop attacks were reportedly filmed by Egyptian TV and the video then handed to the military. The video also showed armed protesters firing at close range at the troops; however, it did not show the military reaction.

The United States has called on the Egyptian army to exercise “maximum restraint,” but also condemned Brotherhood calls to violence.

Mansour’s decree sets a timetable for a referendum on an amended constitution and then for parliamentary elections by February at the latest, to drag the Arab world’s biggest country from a crisis that many are warning could devolve into civil war.

Reuters suggested that the decree contained “controversial language” defining the principles of Islamic sharia law, “in what appeared to be an olive branch to Islamists.”

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